A NATION under the Feudal System was a spiritual rather than a political conception, seeing that its object was to enable men to perform their duties to God and to their fellows. By God's Grace and the people's love the King reigned, and by virtue of that Grace and that love the King held under subjection all those, whether churchmen or nobles, who were the leaders of his people, compelling them to discharge their offices towards people and preventing them from asserting against his authority any right which did not find its sanction in duty. The King himself was God's lieutenant; his office was a stewardship, and he could not and did not suffer that any should alienate his land by sale or mortgage or export his money, the means of exchange of his people, beyond his dominions. His nobles derived their titles and their lands from him, on account of service, and though bishops and archbishops were subject in spiritual matters to the Pope, they were subject in all temporal affairs to the King, who possessed and exercised the power to advise the Pope, if need be, about their behaviour. Thus the law of duty was upheld worthily before all men, and men were persuaded that, apart from duty, no right can exist or lawfully be sustained.
The reign of Louis XIV of France, by common consent, furnishes the most notable example of an effective Kingship. It began in the welter of parties called the FRONDE, when all powers of rebellion and irresponsible ownership which had re-asserted themselves at the death of Richelieu were ranged against the young King's power. It was carried to heights of dignity and splendour of which the palace of Versailles remains the monument. From first to last the power of money was arrayed against it.
No man possessed a clearer understanding of the nature of the King's office than Louis XIV, and the advice which he bequeathed to his son has lost none of its interest during two centuries.
"Armies, Councils, and all human activities," he wrote, "would be a weak means of maintaining us on the Throne if everyone thought he had an equal right to it with ourselves and did not reverence a Higher Power of which our own is a portion. The public respect which we render to this Invisible Power might, in fact, be called justly the foremost and most important part of our policy, had it not a nobler and more disinterested motive as a duty.... Consecration, although it does not confer on us our royal position, does not fail to make it manifest to the people and to render it more August, more invaluable, and more sacred."
Nor was he inclined to overstress the hereditary principle he made a sharp distinction between legitimacy and heredity:
"Empires, my son, are only preserved as they have been acquired—that is to say, by vigour watchfulness and labour. ... Courage and victories are the election and suffrages of Heaven itself. ... Although in the matter of transgressions Kings are men as much or even more than they are in other things, I do not fear to tell you that this is not so much the case when they are Kings in very truth, because an overmastering and dominating passion, that of their interests, their greatness, and their glory, stifles every other in them. ... And to speak truly to you, my son, we are wanting not only in gratitude and a sense of justice, but also in prudence and a good sense, when we fail in veneration of Him of Whom we are only the lieutenants. Our submission to Him is the law and example of what is due to us."
He added:
"I have given some consideration to the condition of Kings—hard and rigorous in this respect—who owe, as it were, a public account of their actions to the whole world and to all succeeding centuries. ... I made a beginning (of my reign) by casting my eyes over all the different parties in the State. ... Everywhere was disorder. ... There was no governor of a city who was not himself difficult to govern; no request was made without some complaint of the past or some hint of discontent in the future which I was to expect or to fear. ... The finances which give movement and action to the great organization of the monarchy were entirely exhausted, so much so that we could hardly find the ways and means. ... At the same time a prodigality showed itself among public men, masking on the one hand their malversions ... and revealing them on the other in insolent and daring luxury. ... The Church ... was threatened with open schism ... by Bishops established in their sees and able to draw away the multitude after them. ... Cardinal de Retz, Archbishop of Paris, whom for well-known reasons of State I could not permit to remain in the Kingdom, encouraged all this rising sect from inclination or interest. The least of the ills affecting the order of Nobility was the fact of its being shared by an infinite number of usurpers possessing no right to it or one acquired by money without any claim arising from service rendered. The tyranny exercised by the nobles over their vassals and neighbours in some of my provinces could no longer be suffered, or suppressed save by making severe and rigorous examples. ... The administration of Justice itself ... appeared to me the most difficult to reform. An infinity of things contributed to this state of affairs, the appointments (to judicial office) filled haphazard or by money rather than by selection and merit. ... All this collection of evils, their consequences and effects, fell principally upon the people, who, in addition, were loaded with impositions."
The King, as has been said, knew the remedy and applied it. He crushed opposition and made of the rebellious nobles and Churchmen humble servants of the people. And he devoted himself to daily toil:
"Two things," he wrote, "were, without doubt, absolutely necessary: very hard work on my part and a wise choice of persons capable of seconding it. ... I will warn you, my son, that it is toil by which one reigns and for which one reigns. ... The only thing I felt was that I was King and born to be one. I experienced next a delicious feeling hard to express, and which you will not know yourself save by tasting it as I have done."
The whole of this Royal philosophy is summed up in the phrase: L'etat c'est moi. There was no Frenchman but must perform his duty; there was no privilege but must be derived directly from duty. The King made it his first business to purge his realm of men who had acquired advantages without earning them, and to abolish such offices as were no longer useful to government or to the people. Even the growing power of Money felt the weight of his authority:
"I did a thing," he wrote, "which seemed even too bold, so greatly had the gentlemen of the law profited by it up till then, and so full were their minds of the importance they had acquired in the recent troubles through the abuse of their power. From three-quarters I reduced to a half all the new mortgages which were charged upon my revenue, which had been effected at a very extortionate rate during the War and which were eating up the best of my resources. The officials of the corporations had acquired the greater part of these mortgages and looked upon it as good business to treat their debtor as harshly as possible in his most vital interests. This action of mine was perfectly just, for a half constituted a substantial premium on the sums advanced. ... It was just that public utility should take the place of all other considerations and reduce everything to its legitimate and natural order. ... The interests of the State must be the first consideration. ... The good of the State makes the glory of the King."
Money acquired under Louis' rule a national complexion; it served the ends of the State.